First Coon for Katy May
Sunday evening about 10:20 Ballard, Gary and I walked down to the creek with the dogs and right away the dogs treed,
right on the creek in a large tree.
We shined and squalled and it was a long time before Ballard saw eyes very faintly.
He said they were yellow and were no coon but looked more like a ring tailed cat.
I had treed and trapped ringtails within 300 yards on several occasions,
so I surmised that’s what they were. We couldn’t see the eyes after that so after fifteen minutes we moved over to a pecan tree and while all three dogs gave the cat hell we all picked five pounds of pecans.
The pecans picked and piled to be picked up on out return trip we moved south across the bottom pasture and into the woods.
Almost as soon as we got into the woods Sue May and then Joe opened and started sniffing around very seriously. Katy got in there too and they treed her within one hundred yards. Ballard spoke before I did but we both noticed the dogs change in attitude at the same time.
When we got to the tree all the dogs were there.
Ballard searched the tree carefully with lights on and set very dim.
We squalled some and circled around the giant oak.
I would step slowly checking for eyes.
Turn the light off and look for a silhouette,
a dark bump against the sky.
I was backing slowly when I saw reddish green lights in the top of the old tree in a crotch.
“I’ve got him, ”I said, coon!”
and showed him to the dogs.
Good girls Sue May and Katy dog, Get that coon!”
And they did, jumping up on the tree and bawling,
they were having a time!
The weather was warm and damp good weather for scenting and I hoped young Katy was watching and smelling and remembering.
We sicked dogs and raised hell and I aimed to shoot out the coon with a neck nick so he would have a little fight left in him but I aimed too low and just as the coon moved I fired and said damn!
I missed him. Just then as dogs were quiet and waiting to see if I hit anything there came a crashing and a shaking of limbs below where I knew the coon was. I said here he comes and shone my light on the ground where I expected him to land.
I thought he was jumping out but when he landed I knew he had fallen and must have been hit. As soon as he landed the dogs had him and were stretching him.
He had been hit square in the head and neck and was killed clean.
We let the dogs especially Katy wool the critter and hung him in a tree and sicked dogs on him again. Katy was jumping on the tree and I took two pictures of dogs fighting coon where he landed and two treeing pictures.
A good lesson for Katy her first coon!
She sure got her teeth in coon fur.
She chewed the coon till I put him on a heel stick and we took off.
Gary insisted on carrying the coon and was very proud of his first coon hunt,
and he carried it for the rest of the hunt.
All in all we hunted about three hours,
but after this coon it was fairly uneventful.
Tonight the dogs did not trash,
except Sue was trailing something in the edge of a field,
maybe Joe could not smell it or maybe it was trash.
No telling, but she did not embarrass me by killing armadellos or crap like that.
We circled around to ‘head lake damn’ and walked back through the uplands,
and came back to the house.
We skinned the coon {I did] and talked till 2:30 making plans to do it again.
J. Winters VonKnife
and Sandymay
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